Beyond Broadhall, by Keith A Pearson

ISBN: 9781543146080
Amazon ID: B01MZHD9DS

This is the follow-up to The '86 Fix and is a good enough story in itself, although significantly darker and more depressing (especially at the start) than its predecessor.

The proof-reader who took a while to get their act together for the first book seems to have pretty much given up on this one. The spelling errors in particular are quite off-putting in places.

The story is, like its precursor, split into separate parts, although these are not marked by separate sections in the book itself.

We find out what happens to Craig immediately after the end of the previous book. The story follows on well, but is (unavoidably) depressing and unexciting to read.

After some time, Craig gets to move on with his life, and the story gets worse. A lot worse. I don't meant the quality of the writing - aside from the apparent lack of a proofreader, that remains good, but the story being told is not good to read.

There are some lighter aspects to it, but very few.

The computer is brought back into the narrative, and Craig is pretty much forced by circumstances to use it for another "time travel" episode. I used quote marks there because the time which is actually travelled is pretty minimal in comparison to what happened in the first book, but the events which transpire because of it are just as significant.

The story turns into something of a morality play here, verging on a psychological self-help guide, but I don't think it's too heavily done, and it fits the story well enough.

A slightly trite and swiftly wrapped-up ending which begs a good amount of plausibility, but at least brings things to a neat conclusion.

If you enjoyed The '86 Fix then this is worth reading as a follow-up, although don't expect it to be as enthralling or fun to read as the first one.

Given that these books were written (or at least, published) in October 2016 and February 2017, I think it's a real shame that the typos and spelling errors have not been corrected in the eBook versions, at least. I can understand not re-printing the paperbacks, but tidying up the electronic versions for future readers would make for a far better experience, and encourage people to look forward to more of the author's work.

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